Portrait head, Plaster cast on dark wood base, Polychrome

It was an exciting year for the Allen family. Both boys married. Gordon the older of the two was the first, joined in May to Jane McIntosh of New York City (1920-2014). A pretty, smart girl, she had already graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1942 when she met her future husband, a medical student named Gordon Allen. They married May 28, 1949. The sculpted portrait of the beautiful bride-to-be was presented to them as an engagement gift.

Jane had thick wavy hair and an attractive full mouth, both sculpt-worthy traits that ran in Agnes’ family. Jane’s new father-in-law shows those features to advantage. He sculpts her hair swept up and away from her face, braided on the side of the part and gathered back into a loose bun with a ribbon at the nape of her neck. Below the head, only the neck is included, balanced at the front point under the suprasternal notch and cut away, back and up to the base of her neck, supported just under the front by a short post.

Allen again uses some subtle coloration in the patina, a pale neutral putty-colored base coat overlaid with a mix of tan and rosy skin tones on the face and neck. The hair is highlighted with a mix of rose and brown.

Jane and Gordon raised four children in Bethesda, MD. She had been a member of the DAR and was involved with her community and her Protestant church where she made many friends. She taught English language skills as a volunteer at the Literacy Council of Montgomery County and stayed in touch with some of her students. Gordon had graduated Summa Cum Laude from Harvard, elected to Phi Beta Kappa, studied medicine at Columbia University and worked for the National Institutes of Health. Jane and Gordon were parted by her death in 2014. She was 94.

Throughout her life Jane was blessed with many enduring friendships nurtured by her genuine interest in people and her irrepressible outgoing nature. Her Christmas card list was “formidable” according to her children. She was intensely interested in the lives of those children, as well as grandchildren and members of her extended family. She warmly welcomed and accepted her children’s friends and families as if they were her own. Jane enjoyed playing bridge as often as she could and travelling with Gordon throughout the US and Canada, and to many destinations in Europe, Africa, and Central America. Those who knew her described her as generous, thoughtful, sympathetic, honest and enthusiastic.